Shelby Adams TFT Turned In-Progression Employee has 4 Generations of Family at Ford

Decades ago, Trina Bird was living in Alabama and going to nursing school while caring for her two-year-old daughter Shelby. Her father was a Ford employee, a production bargaining committee member at Rawsonville Components Plant who wasn’t ready to retire, even though his wife had asked him to. He called his daughter and said, “listen I don’t want to retire and the only way I don’t have to is if you take this job.” Bird packed all her stuff into a U-Haul, grabbed her daughter and mother and drove for two days to test into Rawsonville.?

Twenty-eight years later, things have come full circle. Bird's daughter Shelby Adams now works at Rawsonville alongside her, assembling the batteries that go into the F-150 Lightning.?

Adams came to work at Rawsonville to help with Project Apollo in 2020, extending the family tradition of working for Ford Motor Company to four generations. She started as a temporary full-time employee, building ventilators until the project ended in August 2020.?

She came back in October and was converted to an in-progression employee at the end of November 2021. Adams said she held on because Ford held a special place in her family history and she knew that eventually, things would change.?

“I wanted to come back here. My great grandfather worked at this plant when it first opened. All my grandparents and uncles worked here, so for me, it’s about continuing a generational thing. I don’t think that a lot of people can say that,” Adams said, adding that some of her earliest memories are running around Local 898’s union hall. “I’ve known all these people since I was little. People come up to me and say ‘I loved your grandmother, or I loved your uncle.’ There are pictures of me as a little girl in old newspapers and I want my kids to have that experience if they want to work here – I would be proud of that.”?

Coming to work in a small facility where she knew everyone, and everyone knew her, made things easier. She knew who to reach out to for questions and got the hang of things faster, but Trina and Shelby did have to get used to working with each other.?

“I thought it was weird when Shelby came to Ford during the ventilator project. Everyone brings a different personality to work, and you’re different than the personality that you put on at home. I heard her call me mom and I don’t know that I liked it at first,” Bird said.

After Adams came back to the plant, she and her mother worked in separate teams. But when Rawsonville landed its new battery assembly line for electric vehicles, Adams transferred to the area for a more consistent schedule. Her mother applied to the Team Leader position because the launch of RCP’s battery lines had to go right, and she knew that she had the experience to help.?

“It puts a lot of pressure on her and on me in some ways. I have to pay attention to how I approach her because I am her mom, but I’m also the leader of this group. But she’s not that hard to deal with,” Bird said.?

Adams said, “A lot of people would think it’s a conflict, but she doesn’t treat me any different than anyone else, and she’s the perfect person for this job.”